As I assumed per my first couple of recce’s - Spain was going to be a tricky territory to cover/feature compared to all the others that came before it - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Greece. None of the current Spanish builders have yet attained wholly global recognition as of the moment - unlike a number of brands from the other featured countries.

Probably the most significant Spanish builder to-date has been Roberto García and his ThunderTomate brand - ...

I’ve only just very recently provided a list of my 20 favourite Marshall Style Pedals - and obviously some of those have been separated out into the heavier High Gain category - but when you focus on distortion you can’t really get away from Marshall to a large degree - such is its influence on these types of tones. In fact 14 pedals are retained from the Marshall article and 10 more somewhat different varieties have been added.

I’m known for my 12 Degrees of Saturation Methodology and organising drive/dirt pedals into a specific category. I do however also like multi-talented multi-tankers, and have always had one or two all-rounder multi-drive overdrives in my pedal-chain. In fact of the 9 listed here I have all but the last featured, which also happens to be the most recently released - by Greek Boutique Builder Tsakalis - that pedal is currently only available in Greece - direct from the maker and from one or...

So per the recent NAMM coverage we know that there is a new compact version of the RevivalDrive coming down the line - and a raw prototype alongside likely facia design were on display at the show. The RevivalDrive was my favourite new pedal of last year - I have the Custom version with all the additional EQ options - alongside the additional 2-button footswitch. I wrote in my ’RevivalDrive First Impressions Article’ how much I like this multi-drive/PreAmp pedal - and how I use all ...

So it’s that usual post NAMM-haze time where I figure out the longer-term impact of NAMM, and how those new products will affect the layout, order and composition of my now sort of 40-slot pedal-chain. As noted several times - this was indeed a bumper year for really innovative and highly appealing new pedals - and I will look to accommodate a number of those as they materialise in the forthcoming months.

As I hinted in my last pedal-chain overview - while 2018 was very evidently...

I’ve featured BYOC’s Crown Jewel Multidrive on this site several times previously but only superficially really. It is the kind of Swiss Army Knife of drive pedals that will put some off by virtue of its sheer range and versatility (so many dials and switches) - so I’ve tried to break things down here in a more manageable fashion, while providing everything you need to get the most out of this pedal. I am generally a huge fan of Keith Vonderhulls - Mr BYOC himself - and if and...

Marshall takes up a lot of bandwidth on the pedal overdrive and distortion spectrum, and I have a lot of articles dedicated to said genres including several recent ones. So this one covers those pedals which are of a somewhat rarer and different kind. I have chosen not to do specific PreAmp-style pedals or dedicated Amp and Channel pedals by the amp-makers themselves, but rather to feature more generic pedals which distinctly give you the flavour of the amp/s they intend to simulate.

2018 has been a really surprising year for pedals - there have been quite a few unexpected innovations along the way with also some of the usual production delays and holdups. As I write this I am still waiting for my long-overdue Jackson Audio Bloom to arrive - but I expect it will be worth the delay. I would have liked to have seen the Empress Zoia despatched this year too, as sort of predicted though - I feel that it will be pushed into next year - to coincide with Winter NAMM possibly - in ...

So I’ve covered off a large variety of mini Drive and Distortion pedals in these last few features - starting with the 4-Size key enclosure type articles, then Mooer Micro PreAmps, then the older Mooer Minis, and most recently - the OneControl offerings in that area. This article is essentially a collection of the remaining mini drive and distortion pedals I rate from a variety of pedal-builders. They are not all strictly ’Boutique’ but I felt they fit best within that ...

With the last couple of pedals in the series due to be released this week in theory, I thought it opportune to do a proper overview of the Mooer Micro PreAmp series / range. I am a fan of Mooer pedals in general and have a handful in my collection - albeit none in the current active pedal-chain, but I have always been really impressed with the Black Secret, Blues Mood, E-Lady, Hustle Drive and Trelicopter in particular. In any case, when these pedals were first released there was a slew of just...